Discover the true value of AI website builders

Since the release of artificial intelligence to the general public at the end of 2022, AI website builders have started to bloom on the Web.

These platforms present themselves as a practical and accessible option for individuals and businesses looking to get online quickly. 💻⏱️

In just a few minutes, users can theoretically create a professional, functional, and attractive website that fits their industry, project, and needs.

But how good are these AI tools? Do they really deliver on their enticing promises? Is it possible to create a fully unique, tailored, and custom website or blog in seconds with AI?

That's what we wanted to test for you! 💥

Free AI builders to create a website: how do they work?

As you know, artificial intelligence can now assist you with marketing. But AI tools also support you in your communication, or with the automation of your copywriting.

So, of course, web design is no exception...

AI website builders are intelligent, often free tools that use machine learning to automate and optimize webpage design.

With minimal data and information, these platforms can speed up the website creation process and promise professional-quality results in just a few clicks and minutes. 🏃💭

In other words, these are free AI tools that use artificial intelligence to quickly design a new website. Rather than starting from scratch and having to master coding yourself, or using a predefined template, AI builders guide you to directly produce a custom website base.

You describe what you want – from layout to content to technical integrations – and algorithms transform those ambitions into reality with minimal effort on your part, allowing you to create a website without coding.

How a free AI website builder works

A no-code website generator that works with AI begins by gathering information and data about creating your online presence:

• The purpose of your website,
• Your project,
• Your target audience,
• The features or pages you need,
• The desired style…

To do this, you can answer questions, select keywords, or provide examples of websites you like.

Once you've provided enough data, the AI website builder uses this information to assess your preferences. Then, its algorithms create a custom starter template (website model) that integrates content, graphics, and features.

For example, AI can generate a layout, design text and image proposals, and suggest design elements such as color palettes, fonts, and images. 🖼️🎨

Depending on the capabilities of your AI website builder, it can also integrate specific sections, such as contact forms, photo galleries, or e-commerce functions.

The algorithms generate the initial template, but you are not obligated to follow their suggestions.

Most AI website builders offer you the ability to customize the design and layout, add features, and edit the content.

We will see further how this works and if artificial intelligence really saves us time… ⌚ 

AI Website builder: how good are these free tools for creating an AI-generated website?

Is artificial intelligence ready to completely revolutionize the world of website building? 🤔

Not quite. AI website builders are simply not yet as advanced as most users would like…

If you're willing to give up some control, especially on essential aspects for your online success, such as search engine optimization (SEO), you may find that using an AI site builder is sufficient to meet your web design needs.

But we will see that you will still need to spend quite a bit of time fine-tuning the template (= website model) generated automatically by the machine…

Disadvantages of using an AI-based website builder

While an AI website builder offers advantages, using this technology currently also has some drawbacks:

• Limited control over website design: you have to choose from the options generated by the algorithm, rather than freely modifying each element.
• Dependence on the machine: the success of an AI website builder heavily depends on the efficiency of its algorithms. If they are not up to par, users may face limitations in functionality or design recommendations.
• More restrictive content guidelines: AI may decide to filter or rewrite texts deemed unoptimized. This can end up straying far from the reality of the project.
• Potential issues with the "black box": lack of transparency on how design recommendations are formulated.
• Questions about originality: influenced by AI, platforms may end up sharing bland and already-seen site templates.

So, while AI builders simplify the initial creation of websites, they give up some creative freedom in terms of the company's branding and customization… 🫤

Limits of AI-generated website creation

AI tools (like Hostinger, Wix, Jimdo, Elementor...) offer quick site creation through automation.

They handle basic elements such as layouts, text, and images very quickly, allowing you to test your ideas in minutes.

But they won't satisfy you for detailed, rigorous, and professional web construction.

AI website builders allow you to validate concepts in a few hours, without a learning curve.

However, for optimal quality results, you will need to manually and thoroughly rework the details...

• Control of customization

If you prioritize simplicity and want to create a personal website or for your business quickly and hassle-free, using an AI website builder might suit you.

But if you want more control over all aspects of your website, especially those that could make a difference in ensuring your online success (marketing, user experience, SEO...), you will inevitably have to manually retouch your pages. 🛠️

• Project complexity

If your project has specific characteristics, specific features, or complex design elements, you will need to implement a custom solution to create your personal or business website.

• Time constraints

If time is a crucial factor and you need to create a quickly operational website, an AI builder offers an almost instantaneous solution.

Except that to achieve real results and interesting performance, you will very likely need to rework your AI-generated website over the long term.

AI website builder, AI web editors: our crash test

We tested a number of fully AI website creators to see what they had under the hood. 👨‍🔧🚗

As mentioned earlier, it is interesting to get a website design idea in minutes, effortlessly, just by answering a few questions.

But are the final results up to par?

Risk of inconsistencies

The main problem with AI is that being a still recent technology, you risk first and foremost ending up with inconsistencies of all kinds.

You can notice language errors. While the tool is configured in English, the robot suddenly starts questioning you in Spanish. You must then necessarily master this language to proceed further. 🤷🇬🇧 

Sites not matching the user profile

AI-powered website builders work from a rather succinct online questionnaire to save time.

Of course, they are therefore quite summary and imprecise, which can generate a lack of relevance, or even inconsistencies, which will obviously need to be corrected manually afterward.

Websites with poor design

In terms of design, the results are not always suitable. For example, some AI-created sites are simply not attractive or completely out of sync with the user's activity.

👉 Unattractive sites

AI can generate basic design results.

👉 Unsuitable images

The images proposed by the AI website builder often have a random aspect. You will inevitably need to define them yourself, not only because they won't correspond to your products, but also because they may not be judiciously chosen.

👉 Random texts unrelated to the topic

As seen in the screenshots below, AI sometimes makes nonsense or proposals that are out of sync with the theme of your website.

👉 Limited customization possibilities for web design

As mentioned earlier, AI website builders try to go as fast as possible: it is therefore almost impossible to create a fully personalized professional website for your business or association (or even a private blog) based on a few rudimentary questions.

Robots will therefore stitch together to make a supposedly suitable graphical proposal for your situation; and they will also produce entirely made-up texts that do not correspond to your reality, which you will need to completely modify.

The stance of SiteW website builder regarding AI

At SiteW, we are very enthusiastic about AI-assisted website creation. But we are nevertheless aware of the limitations of artificial intelligence in this field.

While AI can support you in designing your pages, for example, or even in creating your content with automatic text writing or visual generation with software like Ideogram or Midjourney, Firefly 2, or Dall-e3, it is not yet advanced enough to handle building an entire site from A to Z.

Many manual manipulations remain essential, and AI does not necessarily bring very interesting added value for now.

That is why SiteW's technical team has decided to...

...Not rush to remain qualitative

Currently, our website editor, SiteW, has several integrated AI features that will be useful when designing your web pages.

With just one click, you can:

• Summarize, expand, improve, or translate a text.

• Write your pages' metadata to improve.

• Design the automatic mobile version of your website.

And we're working on developing many other AI tools, which will rapidly complete our arsenal. 🤖✨

AI functionalities integrated into a mature tool

The addition of these new features will make it faster and easier to create websites, in a way that's integrated with the existing code-free editing tool, which has been tried and tested since SiteW first hit the Web in 2007.

As a result, our users can take full advantage of the power of AI, without the risk of clumsiness, inconsistencies or errors.

They can also use an advanced editor to create a professional-quality, highly custom website or blog, without having to know any computer code.

Build a website with AI

What about AI tools for creating websites? Our conclusion

AI website generators are promising, but they are not yet the best option. This is understandable given that this is still a recent technological development.

AI site generation is already a viable option in certain situations (to test a graphic design, for example), but these brand new tools still have some way to go. 

The technology reliably automates the initial construction of a website, but lags behind when it comes to dynamic optimisation and maintenance. And many also warn of the potential lack of transparency.

However, despite the current difficulties, AI platforms represent a positive way of speeding up the website creation process. And the future possibilities have us dreaming. 🪄

So above all, stay tuned to SiteW, to find out what's next! 😀